Are paid internships worth the extra expense?

Hannah Ghosn, an intern at Atomic 212, argues that when businesses pay interns for their work, both the company and the intern come out on top.

When you hear the word ‘intern’ you probably assume long hours, coffee runs, paper filing and other unfulfilling tasks.

For an unpaid intern that very well could be the scenario. In fact, I could think of numerous damning news articles in recent months where companies have been hauled over the coals for bringing interns on board without pay.

As my dad reminds me constantly, things used to be different.

ADVERTISEMENT

Not so long ago, paid internships were a rare commodity, or so I’m told. But intense media scrutiny of late and an evolution of modern workplace values may have caused a shift, and ‘unpaid internship’ has become a dirty word.

My own experiences as an intern have been very different from many of the horror stories I’ve found on the internet or heard from friends.

I genuinely believe there is one key reason for this: I’m being paid. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m still an intern, and I’m still studying, so I’m mainly happy to be working and improving my resume.

But, believe me, a pay-cheque sure helps me get out of bed in the morning. It doesn’t have to be a large pay-cheque, but just enough to let me know my work is appreciated.

I may not have years of experience under my belt, but I’m a hard worker and a quick learner and I still have something to offer. Plus, you can bet your bottom dollar that productivity improves when an intern is being paid.

That’s not to say that all paid interns are happy. A friend of mine was a paid intern and still referred to herself as a ‘coffee slave’ – although I’m not quite sure why a company would want to pay an employee and not get them involved in the business.

In most cases, an internship is invaluable and teaches you skills you can never pick up in the classroom.

What’s more, there are proven benefits of taking a paid internship over an unpaid one. A Forbes article I read recently said 63% of paid interns receive at least one job offer, whereas unpaid interns only had a 37% chance of receiving a job offer.

The same article revealed that people with unpaid internships tended to take lower-paying jobs than those with paid internship experience.

Could these statistics have something to do with the fact that financial incentives produce better workers?

Everybody wins – the intern is remunerated for his or her time and the company has a more productive worker.

My own internship is paid and counts towards part of my University degree, so I’m able to truly benefit from my experience.

I have been able to participate in client meetings, create and implement my own social media strategy, help on pitches alongside the CEO and other senior staff, and also complete writing projects such as opinion pieces and press releases.

This is real world experience, and I can’t help but think that if I were an unpaid intern, there would be less human resources invested into my success.

Maybe I’m biased because I’m an intern. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there saying ‘I was never paid for my internship and look how I turned out.’ But if you ask me there’s no contest. Paid all the way.

Oh please! I interned two days a week for 6 months FOR FREE just to get inside an organisation I was desperate to work with. Menial tasks were mixed with tasks that helped me understand the operations and purpose of the role I was interested in and the overall business.

My incentive to get out of bed was knowing that I did everything to prove myself and worked my rear off for the potential of a full time paid job once I finished study. Money should not be ones only motivation.

Interning for free was a privilege that set me up in my career which for 16 years has been in the same industry whilst I’ve worked my way up the ladder. Paid or unpaid, make yourself invaluable and the opportunities will come.

Completely agree with Hannah that paid internships should be the norm. Unpaid internships don’t work and are grossly unfair.

Two major issues to consider here – Firstly if we expect graduates to work for free we’re only going to ever get one kind of graduate – the kind that is able to be financially supported to work for free. That contributes to the diversity issue that is already problematic in our industry.

Secondly, if we continue to devalue the work of interns by not paying for it, we devalue all of the work we do in our industry. Its a vicious cycle – If we don’t value our work, clients certainly won’t. That puts pressure on pricing and margins, profitability declines, which leads to a reliance on unpaid interns. And the cycle starts again.

Hannah, fantastic piece of writing / opinions! I have owned my business for many years and we have always had fantastic interns.. Which we paid very fairly! I mean they were also fantastic at getting coffee and donuts also!! Keep up the good work !

I completed 3 internships whilst studying and accrued 250-300 hours of work during this time.

I might not have received any remuneration during this time but what I did receive was a full time job offer from another agency before I even graduated university.

People in so many other industries such as nursing and teaching have to complete hundreds of hours during placements. No one bats an eye lid that these are unpaid and this is simply the reality of finding a job post university in 2016.

Nik, interning for free is not a privilege it’s exploitation. Plain and simple.

If a company derives monetary value from your work as an intern, you deserve to get paid. After all the company will be paid by the client. They will bill your head hours just like an Account Director’s.

Completely agree with you Hannah, I myself am undertaking a paid internship as part of my degree and I 100% believe both the company and I benefit from this! It’s a fantastic offering that Universities are increasingly including as part of the course and I strongly believe it makes you more employable upon graduation. Great article!

When we’re cherrypicking stats, let’s not forget Forbes stats that don’t take into consideration paid internships often means interns go through a selection criteria, whereas unpaid are often favours of someone within a business.

Besides the point, let’s be seriously real though. In an industry that constantly whinges about it’s unpaid overtime and unpaid interns, people who succeed in our industry are clearly not driven by money.

Generally those who are driven by their paycheck move to client side, or they’re brilliant enough to climb in a short time to the top.

I interned for free, I thought it was shit I wasn’t getting paid, but if I wasn’t happy to be unpaid in a job for a couple of months, how was I expected to love it for a whole career?

Whilst I was studying I interned two days a week for free at a large, well-known company. I was technically doing the work of a paid junior employee and worked really, really hard. At the same time I was trying to juggle uni full time (which meant night lectures and tutorials on the days I interned) and part time retail work. Oh and I was paying rent too – the joy.

After nearly a year of hard work as the unpaid intern, I eventually asked if it was likely there would be any junior openings in the company. I was told “not likely, we generally just hire interns every year”. I thought this was a really inefficient way to run a business. Why not invest their time and effort into training paid employees rather than unpaid interns every year? It baffled me. After speaking to a few people, I found out that they had a really high turnaround of interns coming in for a few months who eventually left after realising there was no opportunity to grow or move onto a paid internship/employment.

I interned at a few other workplaces over the course of my four year degree and experienced this situation over and over again which makes me think it’s the norm in marketing/media land.

I think it’s fine interning for free initially (you need to earn your stripes) however I think one of the main problems is that some companies don’t value the work of interns over time, often exploiting them and failing to offer any opportunities or paths of progression within the company.